Dwyn, I don't understand Congress at all, any more. Polls show that the majority of Americans (I think it's even the majority of NRA members) are in favor of better background checks and extending them to things like gun shows. But our representatives voted against them.
On the other hand, individual states are not sitting on their hands. Some of them
have been passing new laws.
[Edit: Never mind this bit. I happen to live in a state that has gun control laws, but it looks like while some states have been passing stronger laws, other states are weakening the few laws they have.
http://news.yahoo.com/state-laws-illust ... 18135.html And gun advocates are suing the legislatures of the states that have strengthened their laws.]
What I find odd is that, whenever there's another tragedy and schoolchildren are killed, the news media mention the killings at the public schools (Columbine, etc.), but they always leave out the Amish children who were killed in their school by that nutter.